Mad Wife in the Attic?

[inuzrule]

Although I loved reading Jane Eyre, I must wonder...what was up with the wife up in the attic?

I mean, Mr. Rochester could've done something more humane for her, right? I'm unsure as to whether he took the correct course of action...

[Rosalind]

Well, given the condition of asylums during that period, locking her in the attic was probably a slightly /more/ humane option. Not that I'm saying it's acceptable, mind, or that Mr. Rochester doesn't have his own share of mental screwiness.

[MissDay7000]

Also consider, the law at the time would have allowed him to dump her into an asylum and forget about her, but he didn't do that either. I think Rochester did the only thing he really could do while still keeping his wife with him.

MissDay

[Vedrana]

But that doesn't answer why he had Bertha kept under the care of a drunk woman, and why she had to survive a diet of porridge.

If Rochester had wealth of that kind, surely he might have been able to keep her in a quiet country residence with air and space at least. I mean, how do we know that her condition was not aggravated by the environment she lived in?

[godhelpme2]

I wonder whether the atmosphere in the jaillike attic will add to the mental problem of the wife or not. And it will do no good to such an insane person except give her more love and more treatment.

[Stephanie B.]

I don't know that I would feel safe with some crazy lady running up and down the hall setting my bed on fire. So honesty for me that would have been the last straw and I'd have dumped her. Sorry if that offends anyone

[5c0H]

I would have done it sooner!

[soleann]

I don't think that Rochester could ever have even thought that the environment Bertha was forced to live in added up to the mental issues she had. After all, he hated her and thought of her as something of a beast, not as a human being. But I do wonder why he did not just simply send her away to a place as far away from him as possible? I would have done something like that.
Oh yes, and I think that Rochester wasn't perfectly mentally stable himself.

[jensacurlyfries]

One thing that it is important to remember, is that Bertha and, Jane for that matter, are living in a world dominated by men. Is Bertha actually mad? Is the question you have to ask yourself. Numerous feminist critics have argued that she isn't. Bear in mind that ANY passionate outburst was seen by the men in Victorian society as a sign of madness. In the recent BBC version of Jane Eyre, the director presented Bertha as having committed adultery. Rochester, in those times, had every right to lock her up in this way. BUT he could not divorce her without parliamentary consent. Personally I think his decision to lock her up has two levels. 1. she was not in an asylum (in my opinion, this slightly redeems his actions) 2. he could not risk her being found out, as it would damage his reputation, and so he imprisioned her in his home and tried to escape as much as possible. Bronte was making a point when she had a "mad woman in the attic" about the society which she lived in.

[Newcomer]

First, congratulations for posting your opinion. That is what the Forum should be: discussion, in my view, enriches all. Jensacurlyfries writes:'Bronte was making a point when she had a "mad woman in the attic" about the society which she lived in.' Permit me to dissent. To make sense, I think we have to limit ourselves to what Charlotte Bronte wrote in Jane Eyre. Charlotte's art, aim, is very different from Dickens or Thackeray, who through irony and sarcasm criticized Victorian society. Charlotte wrote about the personal, not the general. And if one reads the background material, one is left with the inescapable impression of how autobiographical the creation of Jane is. From the death of her sisters, to the growing up in a home that lacked parental warmth much less the expression of parental love, to the aspiration of emotional and intellectual stimulation of the adult woman.
As to the views of Feminist critics, while I understand the desire to create historical heroines and models for the young woman, please point out where in Jane Eyre such idealogical basis exist. I think I have read the novel carefully and I did not find any views corresponding to contemporary Feminism. Quite to the contrary and I will gladly quote passages to substantiate this interpretation.

[vin1391]

Well like everyone said Rochester could have sent her to an Asylum but he did not.Maybe he still in a way cared(not completely though) for her enough to not let any harm come to her.If I remember right he did try to save her when the House catches fire didn't he? He did not have to do that.He could have just gone out and saved himself from his fate.Anyway it was life during those times.One could not possibily do anything else.I am not sure but I think Divorce was not possible then or it was not popular.(I am not familiar with that time period)

But that doesn't make me forget the fact that he did not tell Jane and would have married her if not for the sudden interuption.I dislike him for that fact.But other than that.He could not have done anything more for Bertha.And regarding Grace Poole..he did say that she could keep Bertha atleast under some control(that is more than what can be said about others.So what if she drunk a bit it didn't matter to him).

Like someone said above Rochester could have sent Bertha to a country side...but maybe he wanted her within reachable distance reagrding safety or some such reasons....Then again this is just my opinion it does not justify the fact that Bertha was imprisoned in the attic and could have gotten some care...But still...Anyway thats what I think.

[Lyn]

I think Bronte stuck her in the attic as an inversion of the typical Gothic structure of sticking the 'evil unknown scary thing' in the cellar. The house in original Gothic fiction (and all cheesy 1980s horror movies eg Nightmare on Elm Street) is of course a symbol of the human psyche, and the cellar (or the boiler room) could be seen as the 'unconscious' where all the bad stuff lurks, just hiding out and waiting to be revealed, aka the monk and all that. Bronte turns this around, hiding the 'evil' at the very top of the house (ie the surface of the mind), linking into the madness idea - that madness is the truth living above what seems to be 'real' but is in fact just fakery - the upper class controlled nature of the lower house, the richness and apparant civility of it all. The lives that are lead in the lower house are not real - what is real is the madness that lives on top of it all, but we're hiding that cos we're scared of what it might do. There's also the whole feminism aspects, turning things upside down and round the other way from the masculine treatment of the subject. I'm sure I pinched these interpretations from some book or other, its just I can't remember which one.

[sciencefan]

Interesting comments.
I read this too many years ago to comment in any detail,
but I enjoyed reading the comments.

I may have to go read the book again so I may comment.
;-)

[dirac1984]

i think the mad wife in the attic is not easy character to understand. you must know that in the victorian period, madness can really mean many mental states which we now consider to be absolutely normal. for example, many men confined their wives just because the wives are a little active in sex life. this fact has been mentioned in Laine Scholwater's <a literature of their own>. i know that some feminist have interpretated Bertha as a psychological reflection of jane herself, which is very fascinating interpretation. but i prefer to interpretate this character in a colonialism perspective, for it is more related to the text itself. remember Bertha is from Jamaica. and when rochester married her, she is not mad. how came she is mad? rochester mentioned that she was too actvie, vehement. little jane is also very vehement in gateshead. so rochester, in my opinion is just after her family's large fortune. and when he is tired of bertha, he just makes up a excuse, then confines her. then he can enjoy his dissipated life. i recommend close reading in solving this seeming mystery.

[sciencefan]

i think the mad wife in the attic is not easy character to understand. ... i recommend close reading in solving this seeming mystery.

I agree.

Here are a couple of clues I have dug up from chapter 26:

""Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations? Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard!--as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points.""

""You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing,""

From these quotations,
we can see that Bertha was mad before Rochester married her,
but it was hidden from him.
He was tricked into thinking she was one thing
when in fact she was another.
He was betrayed in a most hateful and awful way